Bornu

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

A region and former Muslim kingdom of western Africa occupying a vast plain in present-day northeast Nigeria. Founded in the 11th century, the kingdom reached the height of its power in the late 16th century. The region became part of Nigeria in 1902.

The native Sultans of Darfur, like those of Bornu and others further west, used white muslin as a face-wrap: hence, too, the ceremonies when spitting, etc., etc. The Kúfiyah or head-kerchief of the Arabs soon reached Europe and became in Low Latin Cuphia; in

Roman civilisation carried pederasty also to Northern Africa, where it took firm root, while the negro and negroid races to the South ignore the erotic perversion, except where imported by foreigners into such kingdoms as Bornu and Haussa.